The MCM ITP (Materials and Components for Missiles, Innovation and Technology Partnership) is a UK MoD and DGA sponsored research fund open to all Anglo-French companies and Academic Institutions.

Domain 7: Fuzes and Safety & Arming Units (SAUs)

Domain lead: Jeremy Dean (Thales)

The Fuzes and SAUs Domain of the MCM ITP (Domain 7) covers all “Fuzing Systems” technologies. The Fuze System in the weapon is the key element that is used to first ensure the safety of the missile’s warhead, then detect and discriminate the target, and finally function the warhead.

The challenges to the Fuzing System that these requirements present are:

Be extremely robust against hazards and environments in storage or flight before use

Maintain and control safety until it is safe to arm the weapon

Discriminate the target accurately in the presence of countermeasures and clutter

Use sophisticated algorithms to optimise the effectiveness of small modern warheads, to accurately defeat targets with minimal collateral damage.

Be low cost and small enough for integration into modern weapon systems

Research in this domain has so far encompassed:

Novel techniques in safety systems architectures

New methods of initiating explosives

Methods for detecting difficult to locate targets

and computer modelling techniques to improve the ability to explore performance.

Open workshops have been held for qualified experts in the field to discuss and plan fuzing research strategies, and will continue to be held at regular intervals in the future.

The challenges for the future are to design “Smaller”, “More Accurate” “More Reliable”, “More Intelligent”, “More Flexible” and “Cheaper”systems.

There are two ways to find out more about Domain 7: Fuzes and Safety & Arming Units (SAUs)